sings Giroflé, in Lecocq’s opera; and although the sparkling liquor therein is described in the text as “punch”—which does _not_ sparkle much as a rule—I have no doubt whatever that what Lecocq, or his librettist meant, was the grateful liquid which is described in different circles of society as “fiz,” “Simpkin” (the nearest approach a Mahomedan table-servant can make to “champagne”), “a bottle,” “golden pop,” and “the Boy.” Here let me interpolate the commonly-received {127} interpretation of the last-named title. At a shooting party, a stout urchin of some fifteen summers was specially told off to carry the liquid refreshment for the shooters, which took the form of Perrier Jouët in magnums. And so frequent were the calls of “Boy!” that morning, that the youth threw up his situation before noon. D’you believe it? Not a word of it? Same here. At least I never attended a “shoot” at which the gunners steadied their nerves by the aid of choice vintages—before luncheon, at all events; and I don’t mean to begin now. Champagne was probably called “the Boy” because of its free, happy, joyous, loose-and-careless characteristics. The sparkle represents youth, and the froth irresponsibility; whilst the whole⸺ but never mind about the whole, just now. The Champagne district, as some people know, lies on the chalk hills which surround the valley of the Marne. The townlets of Epernay, Ay, and Château Thierry owe their prosperity to these seductive wines, and Rheims has attained world-wide celebrity, as much from being the centre of the champagne industry as from being the seat of the premier ecclesiastic of France, the Archbishop of Paris. So far, guide-book. The champagne-vines are short and stunted, the grapes being small, but most prolific of juice. A third, and even a fourth, crushing will yield a very delicious wine, to an uneducated palate; and this is the inferior liquor which is sold to tourists in Rheims at the equivalent of one shilling and fivepence per large bottle. It is a sweet—what {128} connoisseurs call a “lady’s” wine, which an expert would not taste a second time; and its aftermath, its effect on the imbiber the following day, is somewhat distressing. Somehow, notwithstanding the import duties, champagne—I am alluding now to the superior brands—is almost as cheap in London as in the best hotels in Rheims; but the experiment of drinking it in the land of its birth is not as risky as on alien shores. At least so say the natives of the district, who maintain that although work in the cellars is not the pleasantest in the world—the strong smell, which is even intoxicating, giving the workmen a distaste for the sparkling wine—it is quite possible for an outsider to drink a quantity of champagne of undoubted quality without feeling any bad after-effects. “You may, in fact,” it was told me on the spot, “drink four bottles of Pommery ’84, and feel all the better for it next day.”